In the following review, Klawans assesses Ginsberg's contribution to American poetry.

Strange now to think of him, back before the medals and wreaths, when he lived in wood-frame Paterson, New Jersey; gray Columbia dorms; obscurity. Who would have thought that Irwin Allen Ginsberg, queer son of a Communist madwoman, would end up in the American Institute of Arts and Letters? Strange to think of him as he graduated from college and the loony bin, put on a tie, set up house on Nob Hill with Sheila Williams Boucher and her little son. He knew the path to success; and he knew he had to be heading the other way when he strayed off with his visionary poems and a young man named Orlovsky. None of the rest was supposed to happen—no...